Family Painfully Coping With 4 Aids Deaths

October 11, 1992|by JOSEPH P. FERRY, The Morning Call

Jack and Yvette Bergeron still haven't come up with an acceptable answer to the questions that have haunted them for more than three years.

Why did their son have to die from AIDS? Why did their daughter-in-law and two grandsons have to meet the same horrible fate? Why did the hopes and dreams of an entire family have to be wiped out in such a hideous manner?

After all, they didn't fit the typical AIDS profile. Jack and Lori Bergeron were monogamous. They didn't use illegal drugs. They didn't receive a tainted blood transfusion.

Yvette Bergeron, a deeply religious woman, still hasn't come to grips with the nightmare that has dominated her life since that warm summer day in 1989 when she found out that her son and his family were all infected with the HIV virus.

One by one they died. Slow, agonizing, painful deaths.

Lori, 26 at the time, was the first to go in November 1990. Danny, her 6-year old son from a previous marriage, died just over a week later. Two-and-a-half-year-old Jack III -- Baby Jack they called him -- died this past May. And then Jack II, 30, a former track star at Parkland High School, succumbed last month at his parents' home.

"It's still with us too much to fully understand," she said last week. "I know God has a purpose for everything. We just haven't figured this one out yet."

Sitting in the living room of her Sanatoga, Montgomery County, townhouse, Bergeron's voice was flat, unemotional. Occasionally, her eyes filled with tears. But for the most part, her face remained expressionless. It was painful for her to talk about how death ravaged her family; but at the same time she found it oddly comforting to relate the details.

"Talking helps the healing process," said Yvette. "Maybe we can educate people. You don't want it all to have been in vain. I think Jack would have wanted it this way, too."

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The incredible ordeal began innocently enough, less than a year after Jack Bergeron and Lori Ganzel were married and moved into his parents' house in Richboro, Bucks County. Baby Jack couldn't shake the stubborn case of pneumonia he developed. Doctors were stumped. Then, mostly out of desperation, they conducted the blood test no one thought was really necessary.

The Bergerons were stunned to discover Baby Jack was HIV positive. Subsequent tests confirmed that Lori, Jack Jr. and Danny were also infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

"Before all this happened, we didn't worry about AIDS," said Yvette. "It was something that happened in other places only to certain groups of people."

As far as doctors have been able to tell, Lori contracted the HIV virus in 1982 during a brief relationship with an intravenous drug user. But the Bergeron family steadfastly refused to blame her for the tragedy that befell their family.

"She was young and rebellious at that time," said Yvette. "But she was repentant for her sins. God forgave her. Why should we do anything less?"

In fact, Yvette Bergeron is convinced the couple was brought together by God. Jack was in a state of deep depression over the bitter breakup of his first marriage when he met Lori, who was caring for her sickly mother at the time.

For about a year after they found out they were HIV-positive, the Bergerons enjoyed relatively good health. But then, in November 1990, Lori developed an infection in one of her wisdom teeth. Three weeks later, she was dead.

One day after Lori passed away, her son Danny went into the hospital for the last time. After a lifetime of battling one physical ailment after another -- probably AIDS related, although nobody knew it at the time -- he died a week later.

"I think after his mother died, Danny felt he had permission to die too," said Yvette. "He knew he didn't have to take care of her any more. He could just let himself go."

Lori, a native of the Kensington section of Philadelphia, had always been assertive. Before she died, Lori had fought to make sure Danny's life would be as normal as possible. She tried to make sure her son would be allowed to continue attending Wrightstown Elementary School in the Council Rock School District.

Although there is no right or wrong way to deal with such a difficult situation, the nurse practitioner from St. Christopher's Hospital said the entire Bergeron family coped about as well as could be expected.

"They realized they were writing the book," said Sue Gregonis. "No one who deals with this disease does it evenly. It's like a roller coaster ride. There are always ups and downs. Some days a patient does well. Others times not so well."

Gregonis should know. There are now more than 150 families being treated for AIDS at St. Christopher's. Of that total, 50 are children, the rest adults.

"I see it all the time," said Gregonis. "It's a growing problem. We see all kinds of families here."